"The LORD detests lying lips, but he delights in people who are trustworthy." Proverbs 12:22

There are about 171,476 words in the english language. The average person speaks about 20,000 words a day. How many of our words bring glory to God? How many of our words are used to bring people down? How many of our words are used to lie? The Lord detests lying lips. “Detest” is a strong word. It means “to dislike intensely.” Some synonyms of “detest” are loathe, hate, and abhor. Obviously, our words matter. We need to make sure we’re at least trying to use them to honor and glorify God. The apostle James tells us, “The tongue is a small part of the body, but it is extremely powerful.”

One way that we can learn to use our words for good is by listening to the words God speaks to us. If we have ears to listen, God is always willing to speak life into us. The only thing we have to do is open our hearts to hear those words, speak them, and then put them into practice.

A way that we can allow our hearts to be open to God’s words is by removing ourselves from situations where we hear unwholesome talk. If we continually put ourselves in situations to hear words that are unpleasing to God, we start to speak and think about those words ourselves. We can hear these unholy words in the music we choose to listen to, the people we hang around, the movies we watch, the video games we play, etc. If you make the decision to set yourself apart from these words, the Lord will delight in that and in you. For the Lord detests lying lips… but He delights in those who are trustworthy.